SEALS: CAN WOMEN MAKE IT?

Tough test

To become a Navy SEAL, a candidate must first pass the Navy SEAL Physical Screening Test. Here are the standards, with a minimum performance making a candidate eligible but an optimum performance raising the chances of being selected:

March 3, 2010- CORONADO, CA- Navy SEAL candidates, known as BUD/S, make their way along the Slide for Life on the obstacle course at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado. Photo by Howard Lipin/San Diego Union-Tribune) Mandatory Photo Credit: HOWARD LIPIN/ San Diego

March 3, 2010- CORONADO, CA- Navy SEAL candidates, known as BUD/S, make their way along the Slide for Life on the obstacle course at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado. Photo by Howard Lipin/San Diego Union-Tribune) Mandatory Photo Credit: HOWARD LIPIN/ San Diego

Between 50 and 90 push-ups in two minutes. Same for sit-ups. Ten pull-ups, but more like 18 to stay competitive. Run a mile and a half in 10 minutes. Swim 500 yards — that’s five football fields — in 12 minutes, sidestroke.

Those are the physical requirements to merely knock on the front door at the Navy SEAL training compound in Coronado, where all SEALs are made.

“It’s definitely doable,” said UC San Diego swimmer Sandy Hon, 21. “I would have to train, but this doesn’t sound too difficult.”

Last week, when the Defense Department said combat jobs will open to women in the next few years — including maybe the elite Navy SEALs and Army Rangers — much of the public debate was about physical standards. Can women meet them?

Certainly, for the special-operations jobs, it would have to be exceptional women. They are dealing with less ability to build muscle mass, smaller frames and less natural upper-body strength.

But several elite female athletes around San Diego say those standards are within their reach.

“Personally, I think I could eke out the minimum for pull-ups and push-ups right now — though with a little more specific training, who knows,” said Katya Meyers, 32, a professional triathlete in San Diego who competes on the Iron Man circuit.

“In short, I think every female pro triathlete could at least meet the minimum requirements with specific strength training.”

Olivia Fountain, another UCSD swimmer and former child gymnast, said she thinks American women would step up to the plate, if allowed to compete for a SEAL’s trident or another elite military job.

To her, the standards for women have been set too low. The 21-year-old who graduated this month remembers when as a girl she wanted to take part in a strength contest alongside the boys, but she wasn’t allowed.

It was at an air show. There was a boy’s contest, with pull-ups. And a girl’s contest, in which they hung from the bar while timed.

“I asked them if I could do the guy version of the pull-ups, and they wouldn’t let me. And I remember being so upset about that. I was like, ‘I could totally bust out 50 pull-ups right now, and I could totally win, the legit way,’ ” Fountain said, laughing at the memory.

“I always have thought that women should at least be given a shot. At least my teammates and people who I’ve trained with all my life — there are women out there who can do that type of training.”